As a call center manager, it is your job to motivate, encourage, train, and help your agents in whatever way you can. Being a manager that recognizes and inspires employees is the #1 thing you can do to improve the workplace.
Not only are you accountable for all that goes on in the call center, but its success hinges on your success. After all, one in two employees has left their job to get away from a bad manager at some point in their career. That’s why it’s so crucial that you take the necessary time and attention to focus on improving your skills as a manager.
It’s essential that you not overlook your learning and development needs as a manager. Instead, inform and build your knowledge as often and as much as possible.
But what does that look like?
First and foremost, contact center managers need to understand what it takes to be successful. They need to recognize the skills, talents, leadership qualities, and qualifications to do their jobs well. And while every company is different, a few skills that are common among contact center managers.
Emotionally intelligent leaders make better decisions in the workplace and create a culture of learning and empathy. They are also better at boosting employee satisfaction and customer service. To demonstrate emotional intelligence as a contact center manager, you need to:
Listening to your agents and allowing their voices to be heard is one of the essential duties of a contact center manager. Effective communication is a two-way street that requires you to create opportunities to share ideas, discuss performance, collaborate on goals, and share feedback. The key to success is to schedule meetings and drop in as needed so that communication is both planned and spontaneous.
To know how well your contact center is performing and determine if you are meeting business goals, you need to understand call center metrics. It is your job to select the KPIs that you will track and analyze in the contact center, but you will need to present those KPIs to the C-suite to demonstrate the value of your center. Understanding metrics is also critical to maximizing productivity, improving the customer experience, and achieving corporate goals and objectives.
There are many other contact center manager skills beyond the three critical skills listed above. They include:
The biggest challenge most managers face is juggling managing their team with their other responsibilities. It’s a delicate balance that is difficult to achieve, but it has many advantages. And now that you know what skills you need as a contact center manager let’s discuss what you can do to improve and develop continually.
Career pathing is one of the most critical steps a contact center manager can take to develop their career. It’s an excellent way for managers to create a roadmap for their future and to motivate their daily performance. And it starts with an individual development plan (IDP).
An IDP is a simple document that helps managers outline the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to grow their careers. It’s invaluable for reaching the next level of professional development because it breaks everything down into concrete plans while also summing up your current career and your short and long-term goals.
There are just a few steps to get started with an individual development plan.
Your IDP should only be one to two pages in length, but it should and can be used as a guideline for meeting your professional needs and aspirations as a call center manager.
An incredible 58% of managers admit they don’t receive management training. But how can you grow if you don’t learn? A total immersion contact center manager boot camp is a great way to get intensive training in a short amount of time. In less than a week, you can learn new skills, apply your knowledge in a hands-on workshop, and meet other managers whom you can share ideas with and learn from.
The key is to choose a boot camp that touches on the management knowledge, tools, strategies, and insight that is most important to you. There are many different options with courses as narrow or broad as needed. Some topics include:
However, even outside of boot camp, continuous training is essential. Just as you set up regular webinars and courses for your agents, you also need to be open to training. With an LMS, you can integrate management training into your weekly and monthly schedule, so you are constantly improving.
Beyond boot camp, there are also certifications available for contact center managers. A certificate is a great way to elevate your contact center management experience and optimize your training. Plus, it’s a way to get recognized training throughout the industry.
Just be sure to look for a certificate recognized by SHRM and includes Professional Development Credits (PDCs), such as the call center manager certificate offered by Benchmark Portal. This top industry expert professionally crafts this certificate on the most important aspects of contact center management and can be customized to your specific areas of interest.
Good leaders know the importance of great coaching. A coach can inspire you to do better and will take a personal, invested interest in your development and change. A coach is not about day-to-day training but about finding someone intentionally focused on helping you grow. They should be able to work with your strengths to help you meet your individual and organizational goals.
The key is to find a coach who can provide constructive feedback regularly. They should be able to honestly and effectively evaluate both your good and bad qualities and then help you improve. We cannot always see our strengths and weaknesses, but a coach can be the outside we need to achieve success truly.
Successful contact center managers create successful contact centers. As a contact center manager, it is your responsibility to continually work to improve your department because if you’re not at your best, no one else can be either. That’s because it takes good managers to develop engaged employees. It also takes good managers to achieve your company’s goals.
But if you can take the time to learn and develop the skills of a great manager, then your company can realize:
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